johnkellygreen

Whenever we’re in this part of New Mexico, we always stop in Tucumcari. It is one of the best towns to get a real taste of Route 66 iconic sights: 50’s style hotels, restaurants, gas stations and neon signs! Although Lake Conchas is 35 miles out from the town, the drive takes you through some rugged landscape with mesas, red rocks, distant mountains and a sense of being out in the wilderness.

The park is adjacent to a COE dam site, which lists it’s own camp, but it was closed, perhaps due to the highest lake levels in most peoples memories. Our site in the state park was more than 70 feet above the lake. We came for four days of quiet and to finish some remote work deadlines. Some reviews claimed no cell service, and we had none for the ride out, but I raised our 15 foot high pole with a Boatant antenna and ran it through our Wilson cell boaster, and pulled in a strong AT&T signal. The Verizon signal here showed up as 2 bars 3G, but we couldn’t connect through it.

We had the usual NM state park ammenities: electric, water, a very level site, rest rooms and hot showers, along with beautiful scenery, a lake view and good neighbors. The park is surrounded by private property, so no trail hiking other than within the park and COE property and dam.

Unusual regulations that worked for us. No reservations accepted and no time limits for staying. Most of the area campgrounds were solidly booked on the weekends so we took a chance coming in here on a Thursday and found four available sites which we kept through Sunday morning. Some nice fellow campers, regulars for the most part, with a few seasonal campers. Electric only at site with water taps for filling bottles. Mostly oak trees and a long steep trail down to the Des Moines River. Sorry, no pics. We spent our days visiting my son and family, and I caught a touch of bronchitis which kept me inside.